


The Loudest Thing I Ever Heard

by Morning_Glory



Series: Say Something [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Break Up, Ending Relationship, Everything Hurts, F/M, Gen, M/M, Other, Trope Bingo Round 3, poor communication skills
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-30
Updated: 2014-04-30
Packaged: 2018-01-21 08:42:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1544663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morning_Glory/pseuds/Morning_Glory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky and Steve find Darcy's letter. A companion piece to "Fairy Tales Don't Always Have a Happy Ending"</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Loudest Thing I Ever Heard

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry this took forever, but real life has generally sucked for me lately, and this wasn't an easy headspace to get into.  
> Unbeta'd, so as always, all mistakes are mine, characters are not. It's also my first attempt at Steve's POV, so I'm sorry if it's weird.

It's still early evening when they stumble out of their room with everything finally, _finally_ , resolved. It's taken months, but the mess of a situation they’ve been living has finally played itself out to a positive ending. Zola is defeated once and for all. His group, dismantled from the top down, won’t be able to cause problems for anyone again. For the first time in months, there isn't the lingering fear that they'll be taken from each other. It's the first night in over half a year that neither one of them has suffered from horrific nightmares.

“Should see if Darce wants to join us,” Steve yawns, stretching out tired muscles as they head toward the kitchen in search of food. “We’ve been neglecting her for a while. Gotta start fixing that.”

“Are we asking too much from her? To put up with us like this?” Bucky’s voice is rough with sleep, but the sound of it warms Steve a little for how rare it’s been recently. He tries to be reassuring as he points out they’ve been through this before and Darcy’s always been supportive. They always work it out. But there is still lingering doubt from Bucky and his voice is quiet as he counters Steve’s words. “It’s never been this bad before.”

“Then we work extra hard to make sure she knows we appreciate everything she did while we were… spiralling.” Steve answers back as he digs in the fridge and cabinets for supplies, making a mental note to go shopping tomorrow. They’re running pretty low on everything, and he tries to remember the last time he actually went to the store. He can’t help the small smile as he hears Bucky’s almost silent footsteps walking towards Darcy’s room.

The soft knocking echoes through the silent apartment, and the thought that it’s odd passes through Steve’s head as finds what he needs to make Darcy’s favourite blueberry pancakes. There’s always some kind of sound trailing out of Darcy’s room when she’s in there, and she almost never keeps the door closed.

Steve hears his name called from down the hall and drops everything at the panic in in the tone. He grabs a knife from the counter before he leaves, just in case. Something must be wrong, and after the last few months, he’s not walking in unarmed. Darcy’s door is mostly open and he slams through, scanning for threats with his knife at the ready. There’s nothing, just Bucky slumped on the floor next to the bed, clutching a piece of paper, with an envelope clenched in his other fist.

“Bucky?” He looks up slowly and Steve gasps, dropping the knife at the look on his face. He moves towards him, the urge to comfort that haunted look away taking priority with no immediate threats detected. He freezes when Bucky flinches away from him. “What’s wrong?”

Bucky stays silent, but holds the piece of paper out to Steve. He keeps his movements slow and careful as he moves closer so he can reach it, but once it’s in his hand, Steve barely gives it a glance. He’s more worried about Bucky’s state right now. At least until Bucky finally speaks.

“Darcy’s gone.” Steve feels a swift bolt of panic shoot through him that someone got in and took her. His protective instincts, already riled up, shift into overdrive as his brain starts screaming at him. - _gottafindgottasaveshe’sgottabeokaypleasegodletherbeokay_ \- It lasts until Bucky speaks up again and Steve feels his heart shattering at the low words. “She left.”

“No,” the denial slips out without him meaning it to. Things have been rough lately, but she wouldn’t-- Bucky remains silent, staring at the paper in Steve’s hand as if it holds all the answers, forcing Steve to finally pay attention to it.

He recognises Darcy’s writing immediately, the precise, professional hand she uses on official documents, not her usual loopy scrawl. It sets him on edge with just how telling that little thing is. He skims it quickly, looking for signs of coercion or any of the tricks they’d taught her, just in case, to signal she was doing it under duress. Less than halfway through he stops, going back to the beginning and reading it again, slower, to actually take in the words. He doesn’t realise he’s moving until he feels the wall against his back, and he slides to the floor as he reads Darcy’s letter through completely. He reads it again, and then again, struggling to absorb the information until Bucky’s voice breaks through, sounding broken in a way that’s become far too familiar recently.

“It’s my fault,” Steven tries to protest, but the words tangle into an unintelligible mess in his mouth. Bucky just stares back at him with wounded eyes. “Two days before she wrote that, I told her to leave.”

“You didn’t. You _wouldn’t_ ,” instinct has Steve jumping to Bucky’s defence almost before he finishes saying it. He knows Bucky would never say that. Not to Darcy. Not for anything. There’s more to it that he’s not saying. He takes a breath, forcing himself to remain calm and keep an even tone. The last thing he wants is to accidentally set Bucky off. “Explain it to me.”

Bucky hesitates before looking away and Steve clenches his fists at his side, resisting the urge to go over to him. He knows that kind of comfort won’t be accepted from him right now, and steels himself to just stay where he is and listen. It takes more effort than he thought as Bucky tells him about a late night run-in while he was still reeling from a nightmare. How she’d bumped into him in the living room and offered whatever comfort he needed from her.

“I snapped at her, Steve.” Bucky’s voice wavers. “All she wanted was to know how she could help, and I _snapped_ at her.”

“You didn’t mean it,” Steve keeps his voice soft and tries to be reassuring. He knows how important Darcy is to both of them, and while neither of them treat her like she’s made of glass, Bucky’s gentle with her in a way that he doesn’t bother to be with anyone else. Lashing out at her must be eating away at him and feeding his guilt now. “And she’d understand that.”

“That doesn’t make it okay,” Bucky hisses back, finally looking back up at him. Steve doesn’t know what Bucky sees, but he visibly deflates, even if he doesn’t look away this time. “What I said… Hindsight.”

“You still haven’t told me.” Again, it’s difficult for Steve to resist going over to him, but he needs to hear everything before he can start planning strategy for how to fix this. And Bucky needs Steve to keep his cool for the both of them right now. He has to stay focused on getting Bucky to a better place before he can confront his own guilty conscience.

“You read people better than most give you credit for,” Bucky gives him a knowing look as he presses Steve with a question of his own. “What was Darcy’s biggest hang-up about being with us? The fear she never spoke about?”

“Not being an equal partner,” Steve knows the answer, but hesitates as his thoughts run away with the prompt. “Feeling unnecessary, or us deciding we… didn’t need her anymore.” The words get slower as he links the words with their own behaviour of late, and he clenches his teeth to keep more words from spilling out. - _Gotta stay calm_ \- He watches Bucky’s eyes close as if he’s just been struck.

“I told her _we didn’t need her_ to do anything,” the words are strained, like Bucky has to force them out. “I said we were doing fine on our own.” His face twists like he’s in pain as he struggles to get the words out. “I knew we were being unfair to her and I thought... I told her that maybe some time away would be better for her.”

“ _Bucky_ ,” Steve feels the shock of the words stab at him. He knows-- they both know the way Darcy’s insecurities, even after this long with them, would have led her to twist that into _them_ being better off without her. For Bucky to say something like that at all, especially to her, shines a harsh light on just how bad they’d let all of this get.

“I wasn’t thinking right. I didn’t mean it like _this_ ,” Bucky tangles both hands in his hair as he lowers his head. Steve can’t help the sympathetic wince at just how hard he’s tugging, but remains silent for the moment. Bucky needs to let this out. It takes a few seconds for the words to really start flowing about how much he’d missed, the mistakes he recognises now, far too late to stop them; all of the little hurts that added up over time. It takes a while to get through it all, and every word like a cut to Steve as he acknowledges the part he played in every step of it. Finally, staring at Steve with eyes red-rimmed and glassy with unshed tears, Bucky finishes. “I _hurt_ her, Steve, and she left us.”

Steve closes his eyes and takes a shaky breath before he offers up his own last interaction with Darcy, where they’d talked, really talked, not just exchanging words in passing. How she’d gone out of her way to make him breakfast at a ridiculously early hour, despite his tired protests. And the careful way she’d explained how keeping them fed was one of the few things they’d accept from her, when they were like this, that made her feel useful. And how she’d asked him to not take that away from her too and just held him as he responded with weary resignation, too exhausted to respond properly.

“That was just before we were sent to Prague.”

“Fuck. Steve, that was almost a month ago,” Steve winces at the tone of that response, even if it is barely above a whisper. It takes a lot to truly shock Bucky these days, but he’s just managed it. “We can’t fix this, can we?” It’s not really a question, more of a resigned observation that leaves an ache in Steve’s chest.

“I don’t know, Buck. We didn’t even realise she was gone.” And that hurts to admit. He doesn’t understand how they could have let things get so bad. “We were supposed to keep each other in check, and we failed. We need to apologise; try to make this up to her somehow.”

“You know she’s one of the most forgiving people any of us have ever met,” Bucky shakes his head.

“We can only hope.”

“We don’t _deserve_ her forgiveness,” Bucky snaps, and it pushes Steve past his limit.

“You’re right, we don’t.” Steve snarls back and slamming his head back against the wall behind him as Bucky flinches. He softens his tone as he finishes his thought. “But she deserves better than what she got from us, so we apologise, make damn sure she knows none of this was her fault, and pray that someday she’ll accept us back into her life, even just a little.”

“We don’t deserve her,” Bucky leans back against the bed, dropping his head back to stare at the ceiling.

“We never did,” Steve doesn’t comment on the tears he sees, feeling his own eyes stinging too. They’ll have to figure out where to go from here, but for now, they stay where they are, with half a room between them and nothing else to say.

**Author's Note:**

> A follow up to this isn't impossible, but it's not likely any time in the near future, because while I have headcanon for days about where Darcy is and what she's doing, I have no idea how she'll react to the boys when she sees them next.


End file.
